Why claims of an earlier first bicycle appear
Whenever an invention becomes popular, people look for ancestors. For the bicycle, the search has produced three famous stories: a sketch said to be by Leonardo da Vinci, a French machine said to date from the 1790s, and a pedal bicycle said to have been built in Scotland in the 1830s. Each has been repeated in books, websites and even museum labels. Historians who have examined the evidence are doubtful about the first two and cautious about the third. The well-documented starting point remains the walking machine of Karl von Drais, shown in public in 1817.
What counts as a bicycle
The question of a “first” depends on the definition. A common working definition has three parts: two wheels in line, a rider supported by them, and a steering mechanism that allows the rider to balance. By that definition, a toy with two wheels on a stick, or a drawing on paper, is not enough. A claim needs evidence that a machine of this kind was built and ridden at a specific time. Wheeled vehicles had existed for thousands of years, so the novelty lies in the balance and steering, not in the wheel. Many stories fail this test because they lack contemporary records.
The sketch attributed to Leonardo
The best-known claim concerns a page in the Codex Atlanticus, a large collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s notes and drawings kept in Milan. On the back of a sheet, there is a small drawing that looks like a bicycle with two wheels, a frame, a seat, handlebars and a chain-like drive to the rear wheel. When this drawing was publicized in the twentieth century, it was widely reported as proof that Leonardo had conceived of the bicycle around 1490.
Many researchers have questioned this. They point out that the drawing’s style differs from Leonardo’s other sketches on the same sheet, that it appears to have been added later, and that no documents from his time mention such a machine. Some scholars have suggested that the drawing was added by a later hand, possibly in the twentieth century, though the exact circumstances are still debated. Without independent evidence, the usual conclusion in scholarly writing is that the sketch is probably not by Leonardo, and that it should not be used to date the invention of the bicycle.
Leonardo is also credited, correctly, with many designs for machines, including drawings related to flight and mechanical devices, and this reputation makes him a convenient figure to attach to new claims. It is a pattern seen in other fields, such as the pre-Wright aviation claims, where earlier-sounding stories often attract attention but lack supporting records. Leonardo’s genuine notebooks include sketches of mechanical automata and gear trains, but a bicycle is not one of the designs on which scholars agree.
The celerifere and the Comte de Sivrac
Another popular story names the Comte de Sivrac, who is said to have shown a wooden machine in Paris in the 1790s. The device, called a célérifère, is described as having two wheels joined by a wooden beam, with a carved animal head at the front. The rider sat on the beam and pushed along the ground with the feet. It could not be steered, so the rider had to lift the front wheel to turn.
This story appeared in many books from the late nineteenth century onward and was repeated for decades. However, researchers have not found reliable documents from the 1790s that describe such a machine. The earliest accounts that mention it appear to date from the nineteenth century, long after the date it claims. Historians such as Hans-Erhard Lessing, who has studied early bicycle history, have argued that the story was invented or at least heavily embellished by later writers. The most careful modern accounts treat the célérifère as a legend, though it is possible that some simple wheeled toys existed.
An important point is that even if such a machine existed, it would not have been a bicycle in the sense used above. Without steering, it could only travel in a straight line, and the central discovery of the early nineteenth century was that a rider can balance a steerable two-wheeled machine.
The Scottish blacksmith
A third story concerns Kirkpatrick Macmillan, a blacksmith in Dumfriesshire, who is said to have built a pedal-driven machine around 1839. Accounts say he rode it a long distance and was fined after an accident. The earliest versions of these stories, however, were written decades later, and no surviving machine can be firmly linked to him. Some historians consider the story plausible, while others regard it as unproven. A fair summary is that it may be true, but it should be handled as a claim and not as established history.
How legends take hold
These stories share certain features. They are attractive and easy to repeat, they attach a famous name or a romantic detail, and they were written down long after the supposed events. Once a story appears in an encyclopedia or a museum display, it can circulate for many years. Early cycling writers in the 1890s were also writing for an audience interested in the history of their sport, and some of them wanted the machine to have a long, distinguished past. Verifying such stories is difficult, which is why modern historians rely on dated documents, patents and surviving objects.
Even old paper does not settle the matter. Whatever the age of a sheet made by traditional paper making, a later hand can draw on it, so the paper does not prove when the ink was applied. Dating requires evidence beyond the page.
What can be said with confidence
The firm points are that the Drais walking machine was built and shown in 1817, that it was patented or privileged in 1818, that copies appeared in several countries within a short time, and that pedal machines became popular in the 1860s. Before 1817, evidence for a rideable two-wheeler is weak. The stories discussed here are better understood as part of the cultural history of the bicycle than as stages in its technical development.